Key Skills
• Apply contemporary psychological models of grief to clinical formulation.
• Effectively integrate specific therapeutic interventions within the context of EAT.
• Ethically navigate access to equine assisted therapy environments through training and education, and/or collaboration.
• Strategies for self-care to manage vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue.
Learning Outcomes
1. Differentiate normal grief, complicated grief, and Prolonged Grief Disorder
2. Apply the Dual Process Model, Attachment Theory, Meaning Reconstruction, and Continuing Bonds theory to case formulation.
3. Explain the theoretical rationale, evidence base, and safety/ethical framework for equine-assisted therapy in grief work.
4. Design an integrated grief intervention plan that combines a chosen counselling or psychotherapy model and an applied equine-assisted component.
5. Apply grief and bereavement principles within the Australian context, including PACFA’s and the ACA’s stepped-care, ethics, and competency frameworks and culturally safe practice with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients.
Day One: Foundations - Understanding Grief and Loss
Introducing the Spectrum of Grief, Contemporary Counselling Models for Bereavement, Specifics of Equine-Assisted Therapy, Experiential Equine Sessions
Day Two: Applied Interventions and Integration
Designing Equine-Assisted Grief Interventions, Case Consultation, Ethics, Supervision & Self-Care.
Modern grief counselling approaches prioritize integration over closure, meaning clients learn to adapt to and live meaningful lives alongside their loss. Grief is more than an emotion, and not every grief involves a death. Grief counselling can also involve supporting people navigating the loss of health or mobility, the ending of a relationship, redundancy or career change, and the loss of home, community, or sense of place. Much like the grieving process, equine-assisted therapy is a whole-body, whole-life experience which focuses on the therapeutic relationship as the foundation for change.
This training situates grief work within the standards and cultural realities of Australian counselling practice, rather than treating grief theory and equine-assisted intervention as culturally neutral add-ons.
• The training prioritises stepped, needs-based care, with clear referral pathways to specialist services.
• Grief work is held to the same core obligations as any other specialty, including culturally safe, anti-discriminatory practice and alignment with PACFA and ACA standards.
• Practice is trauma-aware and healing-informed, and respects overarching cultural protocols and culturally safe practice with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients.
• Participants learn to recognise disenfranchised and ambiguous grief in a multicultural population and to identify and adapt interventions for these less visible forms of loss.
• Equine-Assisted Therapy components are delivered by experienced, qualified facilitators following the guidelines of the International Association of Human-Animal Interaction Organizations (IAHAIO), and all relevant codes of conduct, ethics and regulation around delivery of Equine Assisted Services in Australia.
Presenters:
Camilla Mowbray MPsychTh &Couns BPsychSc is the proprietor of C Horses and is a registered clinical counsellor (PACFA and ACA L3) & psychotherapist, and EATA clinical specialist and educator (Cert IV T&A). She specialises in equine-assisted therapy, EMDR, ACT, DBT, and trauma therapy for people across the lifespan.
Plus Dr Joanne Shannon and Kimberley Warner.
Disclaimer:
The content of this endorsed CPD course is provided by the external course provider. Attendees are encouraged to approach the material with an open mind and consider diverse perspectives, particularly those from lived experiences related to the topics discussed. For feedback regarding the course, please contact the course provider directly.